Reflections for 3/25/2009

It finally comes down to the 5th and possibly last blog for reflections on The Left Hand of Darkness and I actually feel like I'm going to miss both blogging and reading the book. I would certainly like to continue blogging in the future, but hopefully not every night. I felt sad that the book came to an end, though I didn't even really understand the ending. While we were discussing in class today, we came up with ideas as to what the ending really means. Some people said that it meant that Genly finally encountered someone (Estraven's son) who finally asked about Terrans and life on Earth. Others thought it connected to the Handaratta belief of ignorace is bliss, that ignorance has ended and questions started to arise.

This book has taught me many important lessons. The first and foremost of which is: "Don't judge a book by its cover, but most importantly, don't judge a book by its first few chapters." I remember hating the book when I first started to read it. I felt completely awkward reading about their kemmer cycles and gender fluidness. After a while, however, I got used to it and began to accept it as part of their society. I guess you could say I went through the same change of thought Genly experienced. In the end, I felt like the book was hard to put down. This lesson also has a figurative side. Genly's distrust in Estraven in the beginning was due to prejudice and first impressions. He should have taken time to understand Estraven more before he jumped to conclusions. I feel that everyone in the world should learn that lesson - get to know someone before you conclude anything about them.